


The Bitter Truth

by TheLoveableMoron



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Chell is an actual mute, F/M, GLaDOS is supportive of her metaphoric human girlfriend, Mainly Wheatley and GLaDOS fighting, One-Shot, One-Sided Forgiveness, One-Sided Love, Opposite of redemption, Really shit one-shot, She has so much brain damage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:34:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24819994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLoveableMoron/pseuds/TheLoveableMoron
Summary: Chell can't stand the truth. It terrifies her. She has to prove that maniac robot wrong. The core she loved is still there. And she was going to prove it to her, no matter the length she had to endure.(Inspired by hannahCbrown's work: False Euphoria. Link: https://www.wattpad.com/277731752-false-euphoria-i-can%27t-believe-you.)
Relationships: Chell & GLaDOS, Chell/Wheatley (Portal)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	The Bitter Truth

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [False Euphoria](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/635521) by HannahCBrown. 



She had found it.

She had reached him again. She had reached the core she had defended all this time. She looked down at the monster attached to her portal gun, the one who fed her all those lies. Lies she just couldn't believe. Ones she chose not to believe. It was the only way she could keep going; to believe that he was still there. And as she stepped onto the catwalk a small fragment of doubt slipped into her mind. The worry that grew worse and worse with every clink of her boots. Every step she took it grew bigger. The worry of her being wrong. She'd built her whole life around him. Her hope of seeing a sunrise outside of Aperture had depended on him. And he had taken that trust and crushed it in front of her eyes. The facts stared her straight in the face. He had betrayed her. Yet she continued to refuse. She continued to believe that they were lies to slow her down. To break her. To see how far she could be pushed.

Yet this was her last straw. This would be the final deal sealer...or breaker. And if it turns out that the core in front of her was telling the truth, then she wouldn't know what to do. She was going to give him one last chance. One option to change the tide, to make things better again. The beady, yellow-eyed monster had claimed that redemption for him was futile. But she knew that robots know every little fact there is to know about the universe, yet there is one thing they will never know; the future. They can simply predict based on logic and reasoning.

And her reasoning told her that he was still there. That the core she fell in love with was just waiting for her to say so.

She reached a rickety elevator and stepped inside. Her chest tightened as it rocked from side to side, slowly going up. She could hear his voice. Yelling at someone. Although it was far away from her, she could hear it as clear as day. And hearing his voice ticked something in her heart. A hope which erupted throughout her, overpowering the doubt and swelling her heart twice it's size.

"You get us down there and I'll hit him with a paradox." The potato said.

She stepped out of the elevator and continued down the path. She simply shook her head in response to the core. And with all the little energy the robot in her hands had left, she protested. "Oh no. You're going to do the thing aren't you?" She didn't respond to her question but the core knew exactly what she meant. "Don't do it. It's a bad idea. I know him. I know how he behaves."

She rolled her eyes. She wasn't going to buy into her lies this time. She had hoped on her side. "I've lived with him. I know every inch of his programming. And this is an even worse idea than any he could come up with."

She waited patiently for the core to run herself off. To dry that one voltage of power out. So that she could have no distractions. "I know you hate me, but you did kill me twice. So I'm calling us even. And if you want my help, then I say not to do that. He'll only-," There was a loud staticky sound that came from the moulding potato. And then there was silence. She didn't have to look down to know what that meant. She was well too familiar with the sound, and every time she'd feel a little smile creep onto her face.

She reached a doorway and stepped through it. The opposing wall was complete glass and she could view everything from it. In front of her was a spotless test chamber. Inside it, where abominations limping across it. They were weighted storage cubes with turret heads smacked onto them. Their little red eyes darted around feverishly, each head battling for dominance over the direction they went. She looked at the misshapen beings in horror, then her eyes lifted up to the screen. His core was displayed and he was rambling angrily about something which she didn't bother to pay attention to. She took a deep breath and pushed back the butterflies that fluttered from her stomach. She turned around and searched for a portal surface to get to him. She noticed a crack between the floor and the wall and shot an orange portal through that. She then shot a blue one in front of her and walked through it.

She walked down the hall to the test chambers entrance. She kept her composure as a mix of pain and happiness bubbled up inside her. She stopped in front of the door and it opened automatically for her. She closed her eyes and prepared herself for what she was about to face. Then her feet walked through the door for her. She crept her way through the chamber. She looked up at the screen hopefully only to see it empty. Her face creased into a frown and she had to find some way to get his attention. She grabbed one of the frakenturrets with her gun and placed it onto the button, which caused the test to be completed.

"Oh, you finally figured it out!" His bright blue eye filled the screen, "Oh...it's just you and her."

"Well perfect timing, really, I was getting bored with the lack of test subjects," He said.

She stared up at him. When he punched her down that pit, she thought she would never see him again. Yet here he was, as real as the floor beneath her. Her gun slipped out of her hand and clattered to the floor. Every step she took towards him caused the desire to speak to become stronger. She wanted to tell him everything. She wished she could confess her forgiveness to him. She just didn't know how. In all her life that she could remember, she was never one with words, and she was even worse at even trying to pronounce them. She continued on, getting closer and closer to the screen.

"W-What are you doing there? You left that portal device behind you back there." He panicked, trying to get her back at a distance from him.

She stopped just in front of the screen. She stared up at the barrier which blocked them from each other. She was so close to him, and he felt so far away. She licked her cracked lips to give them an ounce of moisture, but she hadn't had water in so long that it had become foreign to her. She reached a pale hand up and gently placed it on the glass. Hesitantly she leant her head against it and listened. She listened to the gentle hum of monitor she leant against, the little creatures twitching behind her, and her own shaky breathing, which was the loudest of all.

"Seriously are you broken? The test is done. The door is right there, ready to walk through. So just get your gun and go off to the next chamber." He directed. Her brow creased and she looked up into the hazy, cracked blue eye through the screen. Her throat throbbed in pain as she stared up longingly at the sphere above her.

"She's forgiving you, you moron." A robotic voice crackled to life behind her.

She whipped around to see a weak yellow light shining from the potato on the floor. She was back online. "You're pulling my leg, aren't you?" He asked, a small chuckle emitting from him. She looked back at him and shook her head. He didn't respond for a moment. But suddenly he burst out laughing, breaking the silence. Her fingers slip from the glass and fall by her side. A pit of uneasiness formed inside her. The way he laughed was all too familiar to her. It wasn't his laugh. It was the laugh of a monster. The monster that he had become.

Once his laughter died down he spoke again but in a much harsher tone, "Why would I need your forgiveness? You're the one who should be saying sorry after what you did."

"She didn't do anything wrong. You're the one who punched her down a pit!" The potato cried out.

She was left struck. The monster was standing up for her...she was speaking for her, after everything that had happened. The core was on her side.

"I thought we went over this already. She was just using me to escape. I was just trying to help her." He retaliated.

"Do you think any of this is helping her?" The core growled.

"Well, what would you have done? Just let her ride the lift up and never see her again? Would you have just watched on as she left your life forever?" He bombarded the core with questions. "I know for a fact that I wouldn't have been dumb enough to punch her down a pit!" The core's eye flared up brightly, brighter than she had ever seen before.

"And I know that you would've killed her! So you're no better than me!" He retorted, causing the core's light to dim down again.

In the small amount of silence that filled the room, she had realised what this was all about. Maybe, in the moment it hadn't crossed his mind, but she found that he still cared about her. She just had to find a way to show it back to him.

"And you!" His eye landed on her, sending her out of her thoughts. "You think you're so much better than me with your dumb _'forgiveness'._ Well, I can assure you, that I _don't_ forgive you! I trusted you! You didn't even catch me when I leapt off my maintenance rail." He snapped.

She stood there dumbfounded. She couldn't believe the words that were coming from him. And with his next five words, her whole world was shattered, "In fact, I _loathe_ you." The hope that he would ever come to his sense faded far off into the wind, gone forever. She found the real side of him, the one he had hid away all this time. The one she didn't want to accept. The one she didn't want to ever see. The one she'd turn a blind eye to, every time he'd make little comments. The one she dismissed as crazed ramblings in which the words came out before he even realised what he said. But now she knew, every time they slipped out, they were what he truly meant. He never cared for her. He in actual fact, used her to escape, and then blamed it on her when everything didn't go according to plan.

Her anger boiled up inside her. She bawled her hand into a fist. Then slammed it against the glass. Against the barrier, restraining her from hitting him. "Haha. Good luck getting through dozens of layers of glass, love." He mocked.

She pulled her hand away, and it dropped miserably by her side. She looked at the spot where she had hit the glass. There was a tiny crack in it, one that was barely even noticeable. But it was there. And it would forever be a memory of the hope she once had, turned into anger and desperation, then it morphed into a need for revenge. She stifled back her tears as she stepped away from the glass. She turned her back on him and stumbled to her gun. She almost fell over trying to pick it back up again. Her vision blurred and she placed the gun back on her arm.

"Now let's get to testin'." He said, gleeful as ever.

She didn't dare look back at him as she meandered her way to the exit. Her boots thumped against the ground like thunderstorms. She closed her eyes every few steps, thinking she knew the way to the door, and after a few more she'd open them again, afraid of bumping into one of the critters and falling over on her face. Because if she fell now, she doubted she'd ever get back up again.

She finally reached the door and walked through it. Her gun shook as it passed through the laser field. Her bones rattled from the sudden movement and she leant against the rail to push herself forward. She entered the elevator begrudgingly and leant against the back of the glass. The cold that emitted of the glass, wrapped around her head and cooled down her buzzing mind. She closed her eyes and prayed that this was just some silly dream. But even she didn't have that big of an imagination. Quietly, she heard the core in her arms speak up, "I'm...sorry. I...tried to warn you."

She knew it wasn't easy for the robot to feel sympathy for her. But it wasn't even the core's fault. It was her's. She just couldn't accept what was staring her straight in the face. She should've expected all of this to happen. It was her fault she had kept him so close. That she had grown fond of his voice. Of his bright attitude and twitching eye.

It was her fault that she had fallen in love.

And she just had to accept the bitter truth of the core she fell in love with.

She cursed the tears she had let escape and roll down her face. She cursed having emotions and willpower weak as dirt. She was so strong until she met him. Until he had wrecked her in the most terrifying way possible. And there was nothing no one could do to fix her. So she choked back the bile rising as the back of her throat. Choked back the overwhelming dread and nausea that came with heartbreak.

She had to do the one thing she knew no other human could.

Admit she was wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay this is a shortie.  
> For this one, I was inspired by this poem I read which is actually really good. So go check her out. She's an absolute angel. For this story I wanted to explore their relationship in a way that made sense to the actual game and not the typical, 'Oh ThEy LoVe eAcH OtHer. He JuSt WeNt A LiTtLe MaD.' Well first of all no. That's not how it works. They both used each other to escape. Wheatley couldn't exactly escape on his on so he got her help. And she needed him to open all the doorways so that they could escape. And both of them blame one another when they realised that they used one another and they can't really see beyond that fact. They just see it as the other being a manipulative jerk so they come up with all these little things to blame one another for when really none of that actually matters. If the two of them actually looked past that fact then they would both see that they did in fact used one another but it doesn't make either one of them wrong or right. They hardly knew each other at the beginning of it all, so how can you blame them for taking advantage of the other for the same goal? They see it as them using one another because neither of them is very good at communicating and they are just coming up with excuses to make the other fix it for them. That's really all it is. Just passing blame in the hopes that they don't have to do the work themselves.
> 
> And for why GLaDOS was supporting Chell in the argument, is that I believe that Caroline's consciousness in her has made her a lot more sympathetic. Which there are tons of examples of that throughout the latter half of the game. And because of this empathy that she's built for the subject, she decides to stand up against the one-eyed moron. And for GLaDOS to admit that part of it going so wrong was her fault is a pretty hard thing for her to do. And on a level, they understand one another in having to accept that they were wrong even though they are wrong for differnt things.


End file.
